SAPPHIRE Technology has just announced the SAPPHIRE HD 7950 Flex Edition brining the company's unique solution for multi-screen gaming to the highly acclaimed HD 7000 series of graphics cards based on the Graphics Core Next architecture from AMD.

Most graphics cards based on AMD technology require the third monitor in an Eyefinity set-up to be a DisplayPort monitor, or connected with an active DisplayPort Adapter. The SAPPHIRE FleX family can support three DVI monitors in Eyefinity mode and deliver a true SLS (Single Large Surface) work area without the need for active adapters. The first two monitors are connected to the two DVI ports and the third to an HDMI to DVI cable (supplied) with no extra hardware required.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7950 FleX is now the highest performing card with this feature, allowing gamers to use low-cost DVI monitors for all three screens. Additional monitors can be added to the setup, but must be DisplayPort connected. With its core clock speeds of 860 MHz and 1250 MHz (5 Gb/sec effective) for the memory this model is slightly faster than the HD 7950 standard edition and brings easy to configure multi-screen enjoyment to even hard-core gamers.

For enthusiasts wishing to maximise performance, a new version of the SAPPHIRE overclocking tool, TriXX supporting this latest generation of technology is available free to download from the SAPPHIRE website. TriXX allows tuning of GPU voltage as well as core and memory clocks, whilst continuously displaying temperature. Manual control of fan speed is supported, as well as user created fan profiles and the ability to save up to four different performance settings.

The HD 7000 series is the third generation of DirectX 11 compatible solutions from the graphics division of AMD - formerly ATI. The SAPPHIRE HD 7950 is ready for DirectX 11.1 and the new Windows 8 operating system as well as delivering all the features of the current DirectX 11 such as DirectCompute11 and multi threaded communications with the CPU. Communication with the host PC is optimised with the implementation of the latest high speed PCI-Express Gen3.0 interface, and multiple cards can be used to further enhance performance in CrossFireX mode on a suitably specified mainboard.

HDMI specifications have also increased in the HD 7000 series. Fast HDMI 1.4a supports Stereoscopic 3D with enhanced frame rates of 60 Hz per eye - 120 Hz total. It is also ready for the next generation of 4K displays that can be driven from a single high speed input of 3 GHz HDMI 1.4a or DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2.

APP Acceleration is the name given to the enhanced performance of a wide range of applications using the stream processing capabilities and specific hardware features of the graphics architecture. The HD 7000 series has been optimised for this type of task. Typical applications include Video encoding and decoding, compression and multiplexing for media distribution, gaming or video conferencing. APP acceleration can also enhance everyday tasks such as Internet browsing, Office applications and file compression with supported software suites.

6 Comments on Sapphire Announces the Radeon HD 7950 Flex Edition

Finally, Sapphire done it with 7XXX series. Would be next card for my eyefinity setup.
(Regular 7XXX/6XXX series has enormous tearing problems because of problems with native eyefinity technology). Sapphire Flex on 6XXX series is out of this annoying problem.

These "Flex" edition cards might not be as sought after if this news is true:

There is a beta driver we are testing right now that fixes the Eyefinity tearing on the third monitor when mixing outputs. I have verified that it works with Southern Islands based cards, so I don't know if it will work with previous cards. Anyway, if no major issues are found, this driver should be publicly available next week.